RE makes a powerful contribution to young people’s learning. It provides them with the chance to explore the big ideas of religion and belief and to think about what matters in their own lives.
Good RE supports the development of the whole child. It also has a significant contribution to make to whole school improvement. With the renewed focus from Ofsted on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development for all pupils, it is more important than ever that RE is recognised and celebrated.
The RE Quality Mark has two purposes: it recognises good practice in RE and also provides a powerful tool for development. Schools which have applied for the award have found that it affirms the work they are already doing, raises the profile of the subject and gives them ideas and confidence for developing their practice even further.
The criteria and exemplar evidence in the REQM School Evidence Form will help you to determine the award level you meet. These criteria are divided into four sections:
Learning
Teaching
Curriculum
Leadership
The assessor will also talk through the evidence with you and will discuss with a member of the senior leadership team the extent to which RE is supported in the school. We suggest that you highlight those criteria which you think you meet and give brief examples of how you meet them.
During the meeting, the assessor will make notes about how secure the evidence is on the school evidence form. At the end of the visit, the assessor will usually be able to tell you the level they will be recommending for the award. This will be confirmed by the REQM Administrator who will arrange for a certificate to be sent to the school.
A key part of the evidence is what your learners say about RE. You need to survey the views of young people in your setting, using one of the learner questionnaires. The assessor will spend time speaking to a range of pupils in school.
The assessor will also talk through the evidence with you and will discuss with a member of the senior leadership team the extent to which RE is supported in the school.
Use the criteria and exemplar evidence in the REQM school evidence form to help you to determine the award level you meet.
Please Note: We will need to know if your school requires a Welsh speaking assessor for the visit. Please include this request in an emai to the REQM office.
There are no grants available at the moment through the REC (June 2020). Schools are encouraged to contact their local RE Trust if there is one available, or their local SACRE for advice about individual applications and support
The REQM made us realise the importance of the role we can play in the local community, both in terms of developing dialogue and promoting the value of RE. These are all things we have done in the past, but the REQM served as a timely reminder that these aspects of an excellent RE department also ultimately result in an improved experience for our pupils.
There were a number of good ideas which challenged us, e.g. the idea of pupils planning lessons. Although our pupils have always been involved in our planning and our schemes of work contained many of their suggestions, e.g. using film clips and music, we have never formally asked pupils to plan lessons before. We asked a class of Year 10 pupils to plan lessons on Christmas for Year 7 pupils and they also delivered a small part of the lessons. This was a very rewarding experience for all concerned and we added new lessons to our scheme of work as a result. We will continue to develop this idea.
RE is spectacular here because religion causes wars, but here we see peace and just like to learn.
My favourite thing about RE is the fact that we as a class can learn in an unbiased environment, where everyone’s opinion counts as equal. We learn about different beliefs a lot. This is very interesting because these beliefs can help us understand our environment.
I think RE is a good and helpful way to understand what other people believe and respect.
We all enjoy class discussions and questions in RE lessons, and it is useful that someone always finds a ‘but…’ in each discussion.
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